Jig Day: Feint and Landing
The first troop ships moved out of Saipan’s Charan Kanoa harbor at 0330, 24 July. They were the transports Knox, Calvert, Fuller, Bell, Heywood, and John Land. They were carrying the 2d and 8th Marines (infantry regiments) of the 2d Marine Division on a mission of deception that turned out to be far bloodier than the White Beach landings and far bloodier than anyone had anticipated. They had a muscular escort—the battleship Colorado, the light cruiser Cleveland, and the destroyers Ramey, Norman Scott, Wadleigh, and Monssen.
The convoy moved into Sunharon Harbor opposite Tinian Town just before dawn. A few minutes after 0600, the Calvert began lowering its landing craft and by 0630 all 22 of its boats were in the water. Marines climbed down the cargo nets. Within a half hour, 244 Navy and Army planes began strafing and bombing runs paying particular attention to Tinian Town. Shells and rockets from battleships, heavy and light cruisers, destroyers, and 30 gunboats saturated the beaches. The massed artillery battalions on southern Saipan thundered in with their 105s and 155s.
After a half-hour of this furious bombardment, the LCVPs (landing craft, vehicle and personnel) from Calvert began their run toward the beach at Tinian Town, receiving heavy artillery and mortar fire from the shore. Admiral Hill, seeking to avoid casualties, ordered the boats to withdraw and reform. A second run started and immediately drew fire from the shore; several boats were sprayed with shell fragments. But they continued on to within 400 yards of the beach before turning back.
While the small boats engaged in this maneuver, the battleship Colorado came under fire at a range of 3,200 yards from two 6-inch naval guns near Tinian Town, guns that had gone undetected during the weeks of preinvasion surveillance and preparatory fires. Within 15 minutes, the Japanese gunners scored 22 direct hits on Colorado and six direct hits on the destroyer Norman Scott, which was attempting to protect the battleship. Casualties among the crews and Marine detachments on the two ships were heavy: 62 killed and 223 wounded. Ten Marines were among the dead, 31 were among the wounded. Colorado was through for the day and limped off back to Saipan. The Japanese battery survived for four more days until destroyed by the battleship Tennessee.
FIRE SUPPORT SECTORS FOR JIG-MINUS 1 AND JIG-DAY
The losses sustained by the two ships exceeded those suffered that day by the Marine landing force on the northwestern beaches. But the feint served its purpose. It froze in place around Tinian Town a whole battalion of the 50th Infantry Regiment and various elements of the 56th Naval Guard Force. And it convinced the Japanese commander, Colonel Kiyochi Ogata, that he had thwarted an invasion. His message to Tokyo described how his forces had repelled 100 landing barges.
These “barges” were reloaded on the Calvert at 1000 and the convoy steamed north to the White Beaches where 4th Division troops had landed after a mishap in their planning. An underwater demolition team using floats carrying explosives swam to White Beach 2 shortly before dawn to blast away boulders and destroy beach mines. The mission failed because of a squall. The floats scattered, the explosives were lost and a few hours later, Marines paid a price for this aborted mission.
To compensate for the failure of the UDT team, fire support ships lying off the White Beaches—the battleships California and Tennessee, the heavy cruiser Louisville, and four destroyers—blasted away at the landing areas. Air strikes were then ordered at about 0630 and observers claimed that five of the 14 known beach mines had been destroyed. A battery of 155mm “Long Tom” guns on Saipan fired smokeshells at the Japanese command post on Mount Lasso and also laid smoke in the woods and on the bluffs just beyond the beaches to obstruct Japanese observation.